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Gretzky's Tears

Hockey, Canada, and the Day Everything Changed

Renowned sportswriter Stephen Brunt reveals how "the Great One," who was bought and sold more than once, decided that the comfortable Canadian city where hockey ruled couldn't compete with the slushy ice of a California franchise. Bobby Orr's career ended prematurely, with tears. Wayne Gretzky's tears, unlike Orr's, announced not an ending but another beginning. Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers had four Stanley Cup victories, but Gretzky may then have had other goals in mind. Beginning with his dad, Walter, and continuing with Nelson Skalbania, Peter Pocklington, Bruce McNall, Jerry Buss -- and with the CBC's Peter Gzowski as chronicler for the eager masses -- the enormity of Gretzky's talent attracted all sorts of people who were after a variety of vicarious thrills.

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I have to agree with Stephen Brunt on the essence of his book - this truly was the day when hockey changed forever; from a sport where there was still some purity of purpose to a business where nothing is sacred. The quality and excitement inherent in our unofficial national game took a serious hit in August 1988 from which it is still trying to recover. Gretzky doesn't come off as a hero in this book as much as a kind of complicit, money-driven patsy. A fascinating read.